Vasculitides and eosinophils in emdomyocardial biopsies as rejection predictors in heart transplantation

ABSTRACT

Background: The clinical significance of vasculitides, ischemic lesions, Quilty effect and the presence of eosinophils inendomyocardial biopsies of heart transplantation recipients with mild rejection has yet to be established.Objective: To verify whether these histological findings observed in endomyocardial biopsies (eosinophils, vasculitides, Quilty effect and ischemic lesions) are capable of predicting acute graft rejection. Methods: A total of 1,012 consecutive endomyocardial biopsies were reevaluated; of these, 939 were classified as OR or 1R according to the Nomenclature of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation of 2005 and divided intwo groups (1) Predictive biopsies those that preceded acute rejection; and (2) Nonpredictive biopsies those that did not precede acute rejection. We compared the occurrence of the following histological findings: vasculitides, ischemic lesions, Quilty effect and eosinophils between the groups by uni- and multivariate analyses.Results: The statistical analysis showed that the presence of severe vasculitides and eosinophils were the best predictorsfor future acute rejection, with the following odds ratios 10.60 (95%CI 3.62 - 31.06. p < 0.001) and 6.26 (95%CI 3.16 - 12.43, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Severe vasculitides and eosinophils in myocardial biopsies are the main predictive factors of acute graftrejection post-heart transplantation.